Faust y el rey Midas
by Katie-Mariie
Summary: Richard doesn't like to get involved with people but saving Ben and becoming an incredibly reluctant father has a way of changing that. SPOILERS: Through "Follow the Leader"


"I want to see him."

That's all she says. Wanders out into the jungle all by herself right into their territory and asks to see her dead husband.

"You shouldn't be here."

He doesn't want to have to kill her. The truce is tenuous enough as it is. He knows there are people on both sides lighting torches and grabbing pitchforks. (That's one of those expressions he hears from the new kids. It's from the movies.)

"I want to see him."

"You can't. We buried him yesterday."

That's a bold faced lie. They don't bury people so much as let their bodies rot in a pile if they're outsiders or send them out Viking style if they're one of them. Both of those would be preferable to what they did with the body in question.

"I know what your people do. I saw him."

"Sometimes people see things on this island that aren't really there."

"It wasn't a mirage or my imagination. I saw him on the security cameras. I have the video tape right here."

Richard's not quite sure what a video tape is but he takes it and examines it closely as if staring at it could prove her right or wrong.

"I want to see my husband."

"He's not your husband anymore."

"It's true then? What the anthropologists say about your people?"

"Please. You need to go back."

He swears he can hear Charles on that damn horse.

"I'm not leaving--"

"Come back tomorrow night. I'll take you to him."

"You swear."

"I swear."

Richard thinks sometimes he's too gentle to be a Hostile.

--

That kid's in his dream that night. His glasses are broken. There's a monster that smells like hops who's pounding on the door. Richard tries to stop him from getting in but he can't. The monster grabs the kid and Richard wakes up. He wonders if that was his dream or the kid's.

--

His mind's been running about those video tapes. What kind of technology do they have? It couldn't possibly pick Him up. He's not too tolerant of technology. He surely wouldn't let Himself get put on one of their video tapes. He asks Jodie about it and she says explains that video tapes are like film reels except the images and sounds run through a wire to a television set instead of projected onto a screen. She starts talking about Betamax and VHS and he thanks her and walks away. Next time he's out in the world he'll make it a point to acquaint himself with new inventions. He feels old enough already without marveling at new contraptions he can't pronounce.

He meets her in the same place. He's crazy doing this. This isn't how things are done. You don't just take outsiders to Jacob. Then he remembers that she wouldn't have been an outsider if that guy from 1953 hadn't stopped them. Afterwards Charles said that it wasn't worth it; she obviously wasn't receptive to their message. Richard said that a bag on the head and a bullet in the husband wasn't a very tactful way to win someone over to their side. Charles just gave him that look that makes Richard think that the boy's gotten too big for his britches. He'd beworried about Charles dragging him into the center of camp and making an example out of him but that wouldn't do much good. He swears Charles and Eloise are brainstorming ways to kill him. Silver bullet? Stake to the heart? He'd like to see them try.

He's amazed at how she falls into step with him. She doesn't make a sound. No twig snapping or leaf crunching. He wants to ask her how she can do this but that would be too forward. They're half way there when He appears. It never gets any less disturbing. Especially when He's in a new body every time.

"Paul!"

This is the tricky part. He never knows how much Jacob likes to keep and how much he throws away. Guess it depends on what's useful.

"No."

"Paul, I didn't really believe--"

Jacob decides to be cruel then. No more Paul just Jacob. Sheds Paul like a skin.

She screams.

Richard is suddenly reminded why someone so powerful as Jacob runs around as dead people. Nobody wants to be ugly.

He puts Paul back on. That's something Richard hasn't seen before. Frankly, he's impressed. Jacob walks off into the jungle.

She's hyperventilating. "What was that?"

"That was Jacob."

"Why?"

He assumes she means, "Why does He look like that?" because that would be Richard's most pressing question.

"He's very, very old." Coming from him that means something. "About as old as the Island."

"He couldn't be human."

"Biologically speaking he is. He's got all the right molecules. All the right genes."

"Humans don't do that."

"You'd be surprised at what a human can do."

"Is that why you killed Paul? To feed him to that thing?" She's hysterical now.

"No. We never planned on..."

"Oh God."

For some reason he pulls her close and she lets him and he guesses they're hugging now. He's never been much good at comforting people even in his own lifetime. She cries and he rubs her back. "Shhh. Things are going to..." That's an incredibly asinine comment waiting to happen. Try to be sincere. "I know what it's to like lose someone. To watch people you love die." And that's farther than he's ever been with another person and now he can't seem to dig himself out. "It doesn't get any easier. There's no way around it. You can only grieve and get past it or stop loving people altogether." He doesn't want to say what he chose.

She kisses him. Her face is wet. He should walk away right now but it's not that easy. She tears at his clothes and he holds her face in his hands. He should be better than his. Should stop and take her back to her people. Tell her that she doesn't mean this that she's just lost her husband and is looking for something to fill the void. And what if Charles came charging in on his horse? He'd kill her just to get to get to him. This is why he doesn't do this.

But he does this with her. He's so lonely and it's been so long since he's actually touched another human. Really touched them.

When she has to leave he kisses her hair and there's a look that tells him this wasn't the end of whatever they have.

--

Kid's at the fence again. Does this about once a month (or what Richard thinks is a month as time doesn't mean much to him anymore...) when he gets scared or anxious. Richard meets him every once in a while if he's in the area but this time he runs all the way from camp. The fence is on kill and the kid's about to walk right through it.

"Ben! Don't! The fence is still on!"

"I know."

"Ben, Ben, calm down. You don't need to do this."

Kid looks up. He's crying. Face is purple. Arm's in a sling.

"Who did this to you? You can tell me."

"My dad."

"Jesus. Do any of your people know? Could you tell your teacher?"

"They saw me like this all day today. Nobody said anything. They never say anything."

He wants to grab the kid and run off into the jungle but he knows he can't. The whole truce would fly out the window if one of the Dharma Initiative kids got taken by the Hostiles.

"I wanna come with you!"

"You can't. I'm sorry, Ben. You're just going to have to be patient for a little bit longer."

"I don't know if I can!"

"Yes, you can. I know you can. Now promise me you won't try this ever again. Promise me you won't try to hurt yourself."

"If I promise will you sit with me for a while?"

"Sure."

--

The years roll on as they do for Richard. More embraces in the jungle with Amy and conservations at the fence with Ben. 1977 rolls around and things change.

"Richard, I can't do this anymore. Horace and I are having a baby."

"Amy, you shouldn't try to conceive on the island."

"I already have."

His heart drops into his shoes. "What?"

"I'm pregnant."

"Is it... mine?"

"I don't know."

She walks away. He lets her.

--

"What happened in school today?" This is how it goes with Ben.

"Not much. More Egyptology. Oh, the teacher announced that Mr. Goodspeed and his wife are gonna have a baby."

"Really? That's wonderful news."

"I thought you would want to know."

He wonders how much the kid really sees.

--

He's in a tree with binoculars watching the door of the hospital. Blonde woman from the fifties walks out and hugs the new security guy. He can't tell if this is a good hug or a bad hug. Later on he sees Horace stumble in walking like he's king of the world and still drunk.

Baby survived. Richard wants to throw up. The Island doesn't let outsiders have children here. It would have never allowed Amy to give birth to Horace's child. Oh God.

--

He washes Ben's wounds. "How's school?" It's not like that anymore.

"Mrs. Goodspeed had her baby. It's a boy. Ethan."

"That's nice. Maybe you'll have a new friend."

"I want him to be one of us."

"Ben, I don't think that's possible."

"Why not? He was born here. That's more than Charles can say."

"Why do think Charles wasn't born here?"

"He rides a horse. I can hear it. Nobody else on the Island rides horses. It's kinda stupid."

"Why don't you like Charles?"

"I dunno. He doesn't want me to be here. He thinks I'm just some dumb kid."

"Well, if it's any consolation, I don't think you're 'some dumb kid.'"

--

He's up in the tree again when the sub comes back in with all the women and children. Crisis contained. Everyone go back home. Nothing to see here.

Ethan's grown. He can hold his head up now. Richard just watches.

--

Ben brings Ethan to one of their meetings. Charles almost throttles Ben right then and there. "Are you mad, boy? Taking an eight year old boy!"

"Just watch. Ethan, show them what you can do."

Ethan takes out a knife and cuts the palm of his hand. He wipes the blood on his pants and hold up his hand. There's no cut. People gasp. Richard wants to die.

"Benjamin, if you have dragged him away from his bed just to show us the healing properties of the Island, I swear--"

"Do the other thing."

Ethan places his hand flat on a rock and brings the knife down. He picks up his severed index finger and throws it into the jungle. Another one quickly grows in its place.

--

He still watches. Ethan goes to school. Gets a nice big star on his poster project. Richard's proud.

Ethan figures out to make his curly hair more manageable by using Amy's straightening iron. He looks like Horace's son now. Richard would never tell Ben that Ethan spends an hour every morning doing his hair. The kids in school stop teasing him about having an afro... whatever that is.

Ethan doesn't play well with the other children. He stays inside and reads the encyclopedia. Does crafts. His own little projects. For three months he works on figuring out how to put a model ship in a bottle.

They don't talk at the meetings. Ethan mostly tells Charles whatever secrets he can get from his dad.

He's incredibly loyal to Ben. Looks up to him. Listens to him. Wants to impress him. That's why he agrees to the Purge.

"You'd kill your parents?" someone asks at the meeting.

"They're not my parents."

--

Richard buries Horace and Amy. Everyone thinks they got buried together as a sign of respect. He couldn't just throw her in the pit with the others. He touches her hair one last time.

--

Ethan's smart bordering on mad. Ben can't give him enough to do. He's constantly in trouble. Getting underfoot. Exasperated Ben yells, "Just do something useful!"

Ethan decides to teach himself how to be a surgeon. He has lots of bodies to practice on. Sometimes he uses his own. Tom somehow gets his hands on a copy of the MCATs. Ethan gets every question right.

--

The women keep dying. Ben remarks that not a single mother has survived her second trimester since 1977.

Ethan's wife dies. Richard wants to comfort him but he can't.

--

Ben sends them on missions off the Island together. Richard gets closer and closer to telling Ethan every time but never does.

--

A plane falls out of the sky. Ethan and Goodwin are sent to be survivors.

"Why Ethan?" Richard asks while playing chess with Ben. "I know why you sent Goodwin. It's a dangerous mission. Accidents could happen. Juliet would be very upset but she'd move on. But why send Ethan? You like him. He's the closest thing you have to a friend. Surely you don't want to lose one of the most loyal men we have. Why him?"

"For precisely the same reason I sent Goodwin. As you said, it's a dangerous mission. You and I both know Ethan can't be hurt. Anything short of being shot point blank in the heart will have no effect. Check."

--

Mihail reports hearing shots fired in the jungle near the survivor's beach. Ben sends Richard out to make sure Ethan hasn't lost it. His body is still warm when Richard finds it.

"Oh god... oh please... god... no..."

He wants to scoop the blood back inside his body. Bullets tore his heart to shreds. Not enough life left to repair himself.

Ethan's hair starts to curl in the humidity. Richard wipes it out of his face and walks back home.

--

"Ethan's dead."

"What?"

"They shot him. Six times."

"Oh my god."

"Why did you have to do this? Why did you have to send him away? You shouldn't have let him go back for the girl. You knew he wasn't well."

Ben pours him some whiskey. Richard drinks it out of habit. His hands won't stop shaking. He empties the bottle. Ben fetches another.

"What's wrong with me? How could I set into motion a chain of events that would... Oh God. I let him kill his own mother. I should have taken him and ran. I never should have let... This is why I don't do this. Everything I touch dies. The Island never wanted this. It's punishing me. It's punishing all of us. The women. The babies. It's unnatural. What I did. Oh God."

--

New and improved John Locke can't stop talking about time travel. Can't stop talking about how he shaped his own future through shaping his past. Can't stop talking about seeing the Island's history firsthand. New and proved John Locke can't stop talking in general. So Richard stops listening.

Ben sits alone by shore throwing rocks into the waves. Richard walks over.

"How was the world?"

Ben just raises an eyebrow.

"How many people did you kill?"

"By myself or through a mutually beneficial contract?"

"By yourself."

"Six but one wouldn't stay dead."

Richard laughs. "You've got to stop killing people. How can you make friends if you keep killing them?"

"I saw Alex."

"Off the Island?"

"While I was being judged. It brought her back. Told me not to hurt John. Said that I had to help him."

"Are you sure that wasn't John in a wig?"

Ben doesn't laugh. "Did you see Ethan?"

"When?"

"When you were being judged. I saw you after he died. After you sobered up. You walked out of the jungle and you looked different. I recognize that now. What did he tell you?"

"He said that I could change things. That it didn't have to end up this way. That there would be a sign and I would know exactly what to do."

"Well, do you?"

"Ben, I haven't known what to do in centuries."

--

Sun's got blood in her hair.

"Did he do it? Is Jacob dead?"

"Is John dead?"

"No, they're still fighting."

It's been two days. Half of their people have walked back to camp. The other half are waiting eagerly.

"He told me what to do though. He said I needed years to exchange for the people left in 1977."

"Years?"

"It's all about time."

"How many years do you need?"

Sun quickly calculated the ages of her people. "A little bit over three hundred."

"I'll do it."

"Richard, you can't be serious."

"I'll go back to 1977, grab Ethan and go. This is my chance."

"I'll go with you. I want to go with you."

"Ben, you can't. John needs you here."

--

He sees himself sitting in a tree. He runs to the marina. They draw guns. He gets shot. He doesn't bleed. Amy grabs his hand and they run.


End file.
